Sunday, August 5, 2012

Girly Digicamo Halo Helmets

About a million years ago, I made some costumes based on the characters from the popular webseries Red vs. Blue. What's less known is that while I was going through the process of building the helmet, I started by making a smaller version that I could use as a sort of rough draft in order to master the process. Here's an early progress shot:

Somewhere along the way, I figured I had enough of a handle on the smoothing and detailing process for the helmet and I stopped doing the detail work on the little one. Still, months after completing the rest of the armor, I went ahead and made a mold so I could make a few copies of the smaller helmet.

Just before leaving for Afghanistan, my sister commissioned me to make a full-sized Master Chief helmet for a co-worker's son. Once he'd received it, his two younger sisters began clamoring for helmets of their own. So my sister came by the workshop and I handed her the molds, pointed out the wide selection of spraypaints, and set her to work:

After a few hours of sanding, filling, grinding, gluing, spraying, and stenciling, here's what she'd come up with:

The original plan was a three-color digital camo pattern with pixelated hearts picked out in purple over a base of pink. After a quick first pass with the heart stencils, she decided to keep it uncluttered.

Here they are with the faceshields installed:

The girls that will own them already have a matched pair of pink Nerf guns with tiny purple hearts stenciled all over them. Apparently they're also of an age where they frequently wear matching outfits and constantly pal around together. This spawned the decision to make the two helmets a mirror image of each other.

Even the names on the back are on opposite sides:

The end result is lethally adorable:

More insanity to come. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any updates.